Marketing automation platforms are used by marketers while CRM programs are utilized by sales people. Both offer automation, analytics and reporting features to streamline daily tasks and provide users with important metrics and insights on the progress, efficiency and effectiveness of marketing campaigns as well as sales activities and efforts. As said earlier, they may handle the same customer information but employ it for different activities and operations.

Marketing automation creates relevant content and messaging at scale across many channels. Send email messages with dynamic content that personalizes far beyond sticking a customer’s first name in the subject line. Integrate mobile messaging with your email and social campaigns through SMS/MMS, push notifications, and group messaging. Generate digital ads that appear for the right person at the right time. Plus, recommend the right products on your website for each individual user — automatically.

There are plenty of businesses that rely on close personal relationships, where that have a hand-picked set of leads that their sales team works to turn into deals. They need to track what's said, note personal details about the contact, and make sure they know when they need to follow up. That's where the dozens of great traditional CRM apps come in, as we looked at in chapter 2. They're tools that can help your business track all of the info about your customers, your conversations with them, and convert them from leads into deals.

For e-commerce businesses, automations can increase sales exponentially. But with a variety of automation tools at your fingertips, it can be hard to know where to begin. We evaluated the data from 150,000 businesses that use Mailchimp and determined that although tools like abandoned cart, product follow-up, and category follow-up automations are the most effective for selling more stuff, there are others that work better for boosting customer loyalty or re-engaging customers. See what works for best for meeting a variety of customer needs.
Klaviyo is a modern marketing platform that lets ecommerce brands build an unlimited number of high-value customer relationships. Unlike other software, Klaviyo does not force you to trade off between ease of use and powerful functionality—and that means merchants can take advantage of the most impactful email and Facebook strategies without slowing down. That’s why over 10,000 innovative ecommerce brands like Brooklinen, Bonobos, and Outdoor Voices power their marketing with Klaviyo.
CRM software is the main platform of your sales team and sales agents to improve their productivity and enhance customer interaction with the end goal of closing sales. It is designed to help your company manage its relationship as well as interactions with all customers and prospects. For this purpose, CRM software brings with it features and capabilities such as the following:
The situation at many large companies is much more chaotic. I know of one technology company that had 84 different marketing systems along with dozens of CRM instances. So the idea that CRM is going to take over the territory of marketing automation is a reach for the Fortune 500, particularly those companies that grew through acquisition. For them, the key success factor is integration and database synchronization among their marketing automation and CRM systems. No amount of “best of breed” features will make a difference if their data is an uncoordinated mess.
Marketing automation can eat up a significant portion of your clients’ budgets, leaving less room for your agency’s retainer. (Psst...SharpSpring’s agency pricing model is as little as 1/10th to 1/20th the cost of others.) You’ll want a platform built around the needs of agencies to help you create higher-value relationships, generate monthly recurring revenue, and prove your ROI. Look for a provider that lets you reinforce your brand by rebranding the platform interface, domain, login screen and notifications. The vendor should treat you like a partner, including sending you new business referrals.

For true Greenfield installations, however, it is actually best to have the CRM system perform the marketing automation functions. While buying best of breed for each system has advantages, if a feature really is valuable the CRM vendor will eventually implement it. So in the medium to long term, the costs of integration and database synchronization for separate best of breed systems is typically more trouble than it’s worth.

Market segmentation – the system can automatically classify and assign the lead to a marketing segment based on information gathered from your lead’s activities and interactions. With analytics, marketers get to know which leads are likely to be converted into customers. Hot and qualified leads, with all relevant profiles and information, are them pursued by the sales team.
Marketers use forms to collect contact information that allows them to qualify leads. Based on the information submitted, you can have automation set up to place leads in respective buckets depending on the initial data collected, Davis added. At that point, you are put in a position to identify your “best” leads and determine the best means of communicating with your new lead to ensure a higher closing rate.
Picture a black box that plugs into the wall. Plug it in, turn on the switch, and qualified leads with an interaction history are automatically added into your 1CRM system – day in and day out – while the system is running. You’ll also get charts and feedback on which messages clients respond to best, so that the ‘machine’ can just get more and more effective over time.
Marketing automation plugs into a company's CRM system, which, typically, has its own native marketing automation cloud service (such as Salesforce Pardot and Oracle Eloqua). Eloqua will work with other CRM platforms that compete with Oracle's, and Marketo, an independent marketing automation platform, will work with Salesforce, Oracle, Microsoft and other CRM systems. HubSpot also is a popular marketing automation platform that has its own CRM backbone.
GetResponse is a web-based, all-in-one marketing platform that helps business owners to build permission-based mailing lists, maximize conversion ratios, increase profitability and build customer confidence. GetResponse serves more than 350,000 active users from 182 countries, engages more than 1 billion subscribers every month, and delivers 10 billion permission-based emails per year with an average deliverability rate of 99.3 percent. GetResponse platform includes: Email Marketing With GetResponse Email Marketing, send beautifully-designed, responsive emails. Increase your sales and subscriber engagement through comprehensive email marketing campaigns. In just a few easy steps you can have an entire campaign up and running, whether you’re an experienced marketer, or just starting out. Use newsletters to send updates or announcements to your list, autoresponders to nurture and educate, forms to grow your list, and 99% deliverability to ensure your messages always reach your subscribers’ inboxes. Features: Newsletters, 99% deliverability, autoresponders, mobile-responsive email templates, dynamic content, advanced segmentation, responsive design, perfect timing, advanced analytics, AB testing, forms, list building apps Landing Pages With the simple to use drag and drop landing page creator, create 100% responsive landing pages and web forms. GetResponse landing pages include hundreds of professionally designed, ready-to-go templates. Create top-notch web pages for opt-in, thank you, sales, webinars, and more in less than ten minutes without touching a single line of code. Features Video integration, 150 responsive templates, mobile design, custom domain, image editor Webinars Nurture your leads with complete webinar marketing solution. GetResponse is the first email marketing service to provide a complete webinar marketing solution. With GetResponse Webinars, you can not only acquire new leads but also nurture existing customers, thanks to an advanced integration with GetResponse email marketing. Use GetResponse Webinars to host trainings, product announcements, trainings, demos, and more. Features: Desktop sharing, polls, presentation sharing, chat, moderation tools, VOIP camera and voice capabilities, attendee management. Marketing Automation Scalable workflows based on customer journeys. Create marketing automation workflows in an easy drag-and-drop creator to track subscriber behaviors in real time. React to completed purchases, abandoned carts, key web page visits, message engagement, and much more. Features: Email marketing automation, lead scoring, web traffic tracking, cart abandonment, automation segmentation CRM Create customizable, drag-and-drop sales pipelines to nurture your leads and turn them into repeat customers. Spot opportunities using deals and stages that fit your sales process. Add notes and comments to your deals to easily keep up with daily activities and smash your sales and marketing goals. Features: Pipeline view, deals, stages tasks, notes, reminders.

Marketers use forms to collect contact information that allows them to qualify leads. Based on the information submitted, you can have automation set up to place leads in respective buckets depending on the initial data collected, Davis added. At that point, you are put in a position to identify your “best” leads and determine the best means of communicating with your new lead to ensure a higher closing rate.

We’re fond of saying that Net-Results is the 1st choice of people buying marketing automation for the 2nd time. This wasn’t devised in a marketing meeting, it's something we discovered talking to customers who love us. Marketers who've spent time using our competitors' software - those who've experienced what it's like to work with those vendors and their products - are consistently the ones who love us the most. Let's talk. You may love us too :)
At its best, marketing automation is software and tactics that allow companies to buy and sell like Amazon -- that is, to nurture prospects with highly personalized, useful content that helps convert prospects to customers and turn customers into delighted customers. This type of marketing automation typically generates significant new revenue for companies, and provides an excellent return on the investment required.
Furthermore, CRM is used by the sales team for retaining existing customers. The software has tools to gather information and feedback from various customer channels, and analyze said information to provide the sales team with customers’ behavior, interaction history with your company, and purchasing trends, among others. Armed with customer knowledge, sales teams can craft targeted offers and loyalty campaigns to enhance customer retention.
SALESmanago Marketing Automation provides an easy to implement next generation solutions that redefine the way traditional marketing tools are used. Every day we are going above and beyond the expectations regarding the capabilities of email marketing, dynamic & personalized website content, social media marketing, anonymous marketing automation, online advertising and mobile marketing. Our main goal is to create a product that empowers its users to implement any kind of marketing processes they desire and gets their business to the next level.
When customers leave something in their cart, reminding them to come back for it is only polite. And it's not just about manners, it also yields real results for businesses—we’ve found that our average user earns enough money from their abandoned cart automation to pay for their Mailchimp account. Abandoned cart messaging lets you do more than nudge customers to return and buy the original item they were eyeing, you can also recommend similar items they might like using their purchase history and behavior on your site. Learn how to give shoppers the personalized attention they deserve and increase your bottom line.
Google Analytics can show you what pages are being looked at in real time, along with detailed info about the browsers used, exit pages clicked, and how long people are on your site. You can even use it to see—to a certain degree, at least—which keywords and content styles perform best. HubSpot gives you that same info, along with the tools you need to create great landing pages, blog posts, and more, plus CRM tools that'll help you identify your customers and continue your marketing efforts.
Chris Daley, founder of 1250Ships.com, wanted to spend minimal time and money on marketing, but to look like he spent a lot. Retargeting made this possible. Chris set up a Google remarketing ad in Mailchimp that brought in over $8,200 in revenue, snagged 19 first-time buyers, and led to a 3,879% ROI in its first 3 months. With this ad, he reached potential customers across the web and built his brand’s reputation. Learn how to replicate his success.
Infusionsoft is the only drag-and-drop tool we tested, which is a nifty feature for marketers who may wish to work on touchscreens or don't have time to deal with lengthy drop-down menus. It also provides unique tag removal that automatically pulls contacts from campaigns if they perform a certain action. For example, if contacts don't open three emails in a row, then you can set the tool to remove all such contacts from the workflow. This way, you're not sending messages into a vacuum. The tool also gives you the most useful real-time alert dashboard of any that we tested in this class. It lets you see every contact interaction with anyone in your database. So, if you sent an email to someone a week ago but they just opened it this second, then you'll see their name pop up at the top of your dashboard. From this tab, you can send a follow-up email or adjust the contact's standing within the specific workflow.
At Henry's House of Coffee in San Francisco, roasting great coffee is a family affair. In fact, co-owner Hrag Kalebjian learned the trade from his father Henry, who grew up making coffee to serve in his own father's bakery in Lebanon. Although the company now exists digitally with an e-commerce store, Hrag wanted to connect authentically with his customers. He discovered that Mailchimp's marketing automation made it possible not only to tell his story, but to really engage his customers. See how automation helps Henry's House of Coffee keep tradition alive.
Marketing automation brings value and ROI to your numerous marketing efforts. The right marketing automation platform, combined with smart organizational and process alignment, makes it possible to connect the dots between that promotional email you sent last month, that webinar you hosted last year, and the revenue your CEO sees this week or can expect to see next quarter.
Then, though, it keeps an eye on them, seeing which of your personalized and automated emails they read, which links they've clicked, and what they've seen on your site. It'll help you extend your relationships personally with the most important people while still automating the most tedious of marketing tasks and giving you data you couldn't possible uncover otherwise.

Marketing automation is a software solution used primarily by marketing teams to measure and strengthen marketing’s impact on funnel activity and pipeline development. Marketing automation exists for the primary goal of automating marketing-focused actions and tasks. Many marketing departments are challenged with complex manual processes to execute campaigns and repetitive tasks such as email marketing, social media distribution, and other website actions that can hinder marketing’s performance as programs scale.

As every small business owner knows, wearing a lot of hats is how you keep your company in the black. The problem, of course, is that any business owner only has 24 hours in a day. Cramming business development, customer service, marketing, production, financials, and everything else on one to-do list is a recipe for disaster (and a complete lack of sleep).
Bpm’online marketing automation software provides many useful features that can help you reach a higher level of effectiveness when reaching out to your target audience via various marketing channels, ultimately improving your entire performance and taking your business to a whole new level. Each and every one of the features of marketing automation software we provide is designed to help you reach your goals faster by helping you identify your customers’ needs and nurture prospects in order to turn them into opportunities, so take a look at what they are.
We currently have three Editors' Choice picks for marketing automation solutions here at PCMag. One of them, Campaigner, impressed us with its intuitive UI and its wealth of online resources. Another Editors' Choice, the aforementioned Pardot, excelled due to its built-in search and social marketing functionality. Lastly, the aforementioned HubSpot had an impressive set of prebuilt workflows that also got our top nod. While all of these are fantastic solutions, they are all quite different, and it's definitely worth taking the time to research the best solution for your needs. This, of course, also applies even to the other products that did not get an Editors' Choice designation.